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00:00 The Dallas Cowboys have gone 12-5 in three straight seasons, however, it's not translating
00:05 to the postseason.
00:07 Coach Mike McCarthy says that he met with Jerry Jones for three hours on Wednesday.
00:12 Do you have any inclination as to what needs to change for this Cowboys team to have the
00:18 success that they're having in the regular season in the postseason?
00:21 I just think, I don't know how you get past this idea.
00:25 We've said this before, if it's not coaching, if it's not personnel, if it's not support
00:28 inside the building, then it's mental, right?
00:31 Assuming that you believe that there is a threat that runs through this team's eventual
00:35 failure.
00:36 And by the way, we talk, and McCarthy said to us, "Well, they're all different."
00:40 But look at the similarities.
00:42 They've gotten punched in the face when they lose.
00:45 And by the way, they lose to Kyle Shanahan-related offenses quite a bit.
00:51 And that's not a coincidence.
00:52 The Packers punched him in the mouth this year and beat him.
00:55 The Bills punched him in the mouth.
00:56 To the point where the Bills are a throwing team.
01:00 They changed their offense that day and said, "We're going to be a running team against
01:04 you, because we believe that your Dan Quinn-designed defense, which is about speed, which is a
01:10 good way to win in the NFL, but how do you do it both?
01:15 We can play with speed if that's what we need.
01:16 We can play with power if that's what we need.
01:18 Our best player is a 245-pound defensive end in Micah Parsons.
01:22 Well, that's 40 pounds lighter than some other defensive ends.
01:27 So how do you make all that work?
01:31 Against Kyle Shanahan-related offenses, the Cowboys don't make it work.
01:35 Go back to the 49ers in the playoffs, punching them out, punching them out.
01:39 Bills this year, punching them out.
01:41 Packers punching them out.
01:42 In the meeting with Jerry Jones, a three-hour session in which McCarthy said he asked all
01:49 the good questions, he asked all the hard questions.
01:51 In that meeting, there's no question that whether you want to believe that it was a
01:55 job interview or not, even though that was the words used for me at the beginning of
02:01 the week, now that we know the Cowboys really haven't looked at other candidates, how is
02:05 it a job interview if I'm the only guy they interviewed for the job?
02:10 Certainly in that meeting, though, it was, "Show me the plan.
02:13 What do we do if Dan Quinn leaves?
02:16 How do we make Dak Prescott even better?
02:18 What do we do contractually with Dak Prescott?"
02:20 Which is not Mike McCarthy's business, necessarily, but it is a subject in this building.
02:26 The previous idea, "Well, of course you'd give him an extension."
02:28 I think some people in this building are stepping back just a little bit from that right now.
02:35 How do we get over the mental hump, hump, hump in a three-hour meeting?
02:39 I promise you that those things came up.
02:41 It should be noted.
02:42 McCarthy says, "I did not go into that meeting with any particular trepidation about my job
02:47 security and what he told us in our question.
02:49 He says, "I'm too in the moment."
02:51 He goes, "I think about my family."
02:53 Yeah, he says he worries the most about his family.
02:55 That's totally understandable.
02:56 He says, "But the rest of this is part of my job.
02:59 The ups, the downs, the scrutiny, I will close with this by hearkening back to Jimmy Johnson."
03:07 A guy right now, a good guy for Cowboy fans to hearken back to, especially after what
03:12 Jimmy did on TV the other day at halftime of that Packers game where he gave a halftime
03:18 locker room speech as if he was in the locker room.
03:21 Troy Aikman has since commented, he said, "You know, that was real."
03:24 He said, "A lot of this stuff that goes on on TV, just acting."
03:28 He says, "That was real?"
03:29 He says, "It was reminiscent of how Jimmy used to do it."
03:32 He said, because Jimmy's much more mellow, of course, nowadays, and Aikman said, "And
03:38 they're good friends."
03:39 He said, "That's as mad as I've seen him."
03:42 Wow.
03:43 "In decades."
03:44 Yeah.
03:45 "And so there was something very real about all that, about that passion and that emotion."
03:51 Mike McCarthy, of course, not that kind of coach.
03:53 And you can't fake it.
03:55 No.
03:56 The players know.
03:57 Right.
03:58 You don't want Mike McCarthy to pretend he's Jimmy Johnson.
04:00 But you hearken back to Jimmy Johnson's thoughts on how these things work.
04:05 And if you're trying to go borrow, and Mike McCarthy's got his, he's got his Marty Schottenheimer,
04:10 the late Marty Schottenheimer, and that's kind of his reference point.
04:14 But let's go back and listen to some of the things that Jimmy has said about motivation
04:20 and structure and organization.
04:22 Can you crack the whip, so to speak, in here?
04:25 You make guys do pushups?
04:27 Does that work?
04:28 Hey, let's run some laps.
04:29 That worked in high school, right?
04:32 So how do you motivate this good team into being a great team?
04:39 Everybody needs to go ask Jimmy Johnson what he might do, besides just a halftime pep talk
04:43 on TV.
04:44 Love it.
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